‘Have you made a decision?’ asked Dominic, trying not to let his own tension show.
‘We are the guardians of the forest,’ the kesh told him, hooting menacingly. ‘You are the guardian of the centre only. We refuse to accept your attempt to dictate to us. Fear the trees!’
With that prideful declaration, the kesh turned as if to leave. Bad mistake, to show his back to a lion he had just refused.
‘Kill them,’ snarled Leo in his head.
Dominic didn’t argue with him or waste time. Now a declared enemy, he had no compunctions in attacking. Pouncing on the leader’s back, he sank his teeth deep into the monkey-like creature’s neck, even as his significantly greater weight bore the beast to the floor.
[You have killed Kesh (Evolved Beast level 16)]
[You have earned 4 PP]
The group of kesh who had turned around with the leader now turned back, hooting and screeching angrily. They leapt at Dominic, several picking up stones from the ground as primitive weapons.
With roars of anger, Dominic heard his lionesses join the fight even as he bit and clawed at the closest kesh.
[You have killed Kesh (Evolved Beast level 12)]
[You have earned 3 PP]
[A member of your party has killed Kesh (Half-Step Evolved Beast level 9)]
[You have earned 2 PP]
[A member of your party has killed Kesh (Half-Step Evolved Beast level 9)]
[You have earned 2 PP]
[A member of your party has killed Kesh (Evolved Beast level 10)]
[You have earned 2 PP]
[A member of your party has killed Kesh (Half-Step Evolved Beast level 8)]
[You have earned 2 PP]
[You have killed Kesh (Evolved Beast level 12)]
[You have earned 3 PP]
A flurry of kills flashed up in the first second of the fight, his own attacks with claw, tooth, and acid claiming two kesh even as the lionesses took down four more. But the kesh didn’t even hesitate, their eyes becoming red and bloodshot as they whipped themselves into a frenzy.
Several got noticeably bigger, others started striking faster. Dominic took several painful blows, two from fists, two from rocks that were thrown at him. They didn’t do a huge amount of damage to his health bar, but they did more than he’d prefer, and left the areas in question aching.
There were simply so many of them, all crowding around the one who had killed their leader. Attacks were bound to connect; he just didn’t have enough space to avoid all of the strikes.
Of course, that did mean they struggled to avoid his strikes too, but they seemed possessed of some zealotry or battle-madness and didn’t appear to care. Dominic decided to employ one of his favourite tactics when surrounded and leapt straight upwards.
The problem this time was that – predictably, if he’d thought about it – the kesh were rather familiar with large leaps themselves. Even as he jumped into the air, the monkey-like creatures followed him, grabbing at his body and pummeling him even in the air.
Dominic twisted to bite at them, spitting acid to try to make them let go, but he couldn’t fight them all off in time. He landed badly – perhaps crash-landed would be a better description. Instead of landing lightly on his feet, he slammed into the ground on his side, bashing his head against the earth.
[You have killed Kesh (Half-Step Evolved Beast level 9)]
[You have earned 2 PP]
[You have killed Kesh (Evolved Beast level 11)]
[You have earned 3 PP]
Pain stabbed through him as his impact with the ground did more damage than all of the kesh’s attacks had so far. He was pretty sure he’d felt the snap of ribs and his breathing abruptly became more difficult. His health bar dropped by about a quarter in that single injury.
Stunned for a moment by the head injury, he felt confused, unsure of just what was happening.
‘...et up. Get up, damn you!’
The words filtered into his mind, taking time to make sense.
‘Leo?’ he asked a little weakly.
‘Yes, you great lummox! Get up or let me take over!’ his companion shouted at him. Dominic took a moment more to parse that, but his head was starting to clear up a bit. Slowly, he became more aware of what was going on.
He was covered with biting, tearing, hitting beasts. Individually, they didn’t make much difference, but together they were having a disturbingly large impact.
Notifications flashed up in front of his eyes, making his headache even worse. Clearly the lionesses were still going strong.
Suddenly, there was a familiar weird moaning noise that throbbed through the air. Dominic himself was unaffected, but the kesh were a different story. They paused mid-bite, mid-strike and froze. Looking into the eyes of the closest one to him, he saw that they were still aware of what was happening, but as unable to move as Dominic had been when this had happened to him.
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This was his chance to get out of this mess – he knew the amesheks wouldn’t be able to keep the attack going forever. Still, their effect was clear, both in the stillness of his enemies and the health already starting to drain from their bars.
Triggering Second Wind, he saw his health bar shoot up to almost full. The Ability didn’t take away his injuries so he had to fight through the pain, but with his health and stamina full or close to it, he wasn’t worried about dying anymore. Not straight away, anyway.
With the weight of the bodies lying on him, he couldn’t push himself to his feet. Not yet. Instead, he lashed out from where he was, clawing open throats, dragging kesh closer so he could use his teeth, ripping through stomachs and spilling out their intestines.
The strikes weren’t clean, they weren’t fair, but Dominic didn’t care.
Notification after notification continued flashing up in front of him, both his own kills and the lionesses’. By the time the amesheks’ freezing moan died, the group of them working together had managed to clear the battle-ground enough that the lion could push himself to his feet and rejoin the females.
Together, they wiped out the last five of the creatures and the clearing went silent. Well, almost the last five.
Turning away from the massacre, Dominic saw a small group of seven kesh, cowering under the watchful eye of Isis.
‘What’s this?’ he asked her, feeling grumpy and irritable because of the stabbing pains still going through him.
‘Sister said to guard,’ Isis replied, sending him a scent image that he immediately recognised as Sekhmet. Dominic turned to the lioness in question and asked her the same thing.
‘They said they had a deal,’ she answered. ‘You were busy.’
Oh, that made sense. Dominic thought ruefully that he’d have felt like a right idiot if the kesh who had seen sense had ended up killed in the crossfire. Not to mention that it would have caused problems with the rest of the clans in the trees. I should probably have thought of that, he sighed to himself, though recognised that he’d been rather distracted at the time.
‘Thanks,’ he said instead to Sekhmet and Isis, then limped over to the group of living monkey-like creatures. Had he injured his pelvis? It certainly felt at least bruised, though probably wasn’t broken otherwise he’d be having more difficulty walking than he actually was.
While he limped slowly, he catalogued his various aches and pains. His head was aching fit to burst, his mane probably having cushioned it, but not enough. His ribs were killing him with every breath in and out – he was trying to take shallow breaths to minimise the agony. He was bruised all down his side, and his hips hurt with every step. It was annoying not to have a level-up waiting for him – he wished he could have just cleared away the injuries as several of the lionesses had, Sekhmet one of them.
His tail alone was free of pain, though at least his teeth hadn’t been broken again. Note to self, he said wryly. Don’t leap when there’s a chance I will be made unable to land properly – it isn’t fun.
Thinking about his tail, he realised that he hadn’t used his tail armour in ages. It just doesn’t suit my fighting style any longer, he thought to himself. Not that it had ever suited him particularly well, but these days his attacks were all concentrated in the front. Well, if I’m not going to use it, I might as well pass it on to someone else, he decided. Perhaps one of the other lions would find it more useful than him. Certainly, having it sit and rust in his storage space wouldn’t do any of them any good.
The distraction got him through the space between him and the living kesh. Just as he got to them, he realised that he could have healed himself by absorbing bodies rather than going through the rigamarole of limping around with injuries. That head injury must still be affecting him more than he thought.
Well, he was in front of them now – somehow he felt that turning around and limping back to the bodies would make him lose face. Besides, if the kesh didn’t already know about the strategy, he’d rather not share it with them. On that note, he put a quick message in the Pride chat to hold off on absorbing bodies. From what he could tell, his own injuries were the most serious anyway.
Though tempted to lie down and rest, Dominic stayed standing – he didn’t want to look as vulnerable as he actually was and tempt an attack. His Regeneration was working nicely on his injuries and health bar, though – he was already past the point that he’d be at risk from Second Wind taking its due.
‘Congratulations,’ he said a little grimly to the kesh with whom he’d been speaking before. ‘You get to live. As long as you don’t make any stupid moves in the near future,’ he continued. ‘Like attack me or any of my Pride. Or, frankly, do anything other than exactly what I tell you to. Is that understood?’
‘We understand,’ replied the spokes-kesh levelly, though Dominic could see its fear in its wide eyes and the way it pressed itself closer to its group and the ground.
‘Good. I’m sure you’ll understand that I have no patience for any more arrogant idiots who decide to pick a fight with me,’ Dominic said darkly. Even if he had been one of those idiots himself – he’d definitely fought that battle badly.
Second Wind chose that moment to run out and it took everything he had not to let on to the kesh that the pain he was in felt like it had just doubled. Hopefully none of them could see health bars like Nyx could. He still hadn’t spoken to her about that.
‘We recognise the power of your clan,’ the kesh told him carefully, sounding like there was more unspoken meaning in their communication than spoken. Dominic would have to read between the lines later: this was not a good time.
‘Then go back to your clans, and give them my ultimatum. Any who wish to leave may do so, but any who stay agree to abide by my rules and in an area of the forest of my choosing.’
‘We will tell them,’ promised the kesh. ‘Where should we say are the boundaries of our area?’ it asked. It was a completely reasonable question, though one that Dominic couldn’t answer right at that moment.
‘I will come to you either later today or tomorrow to give you my decision,’ the lion said shortly. The kesh chattered its teeth softly.
‘Ask any of my kind for the leader and either I, or whoever becomes the leader, will attend to you.’
Dominic stepped away and sent a message to Isis to let them go. One by one his lionesses came to stand at his shoulder. The amesheks stayed where they were, looming threateningly just by staring straight at the monkey-like kesh. Sending several wary glances behind them, the seven remaining kesh made their way back to the forest.
‘We let them go. We hunt later?’ Anuke asked in the Pride chat. From the interest the rest of the lionesses showed, they had the same question.
‘We’ll see,’ said Dominic finally.